Master WS26
EP Design Studio 2
Andreas Rumpfhuber (Group 0)
#Housing Labour
The design studio revolves around the question of how housing can be conceived in the ‘social factory’ (Mario Tronti) using architectural means. In other words, we examine how living is changing in light of the continuous automation of all work processes and the accompanying decline of the wage labour society (with its temporary stabilisation through secure jobs and the concept of a stable (heteronormative) nuclear family) and what spatial solutions architecture can contribute to this.
EP Design Studio 2
Thomas Feuerstein (Group 1)
METABOLIC ARCHITECTURE
Metabolic processes determine our lives, from the smallest cell in our bodies to carbon and nitrogen cycles in nature to economics, consumption, industry, mobility, and digitality. Construction and housing account for the largest share of global metabolism in terms of materials and energy. In regard to resources, climate, social justice, and biodiversity, architecture has become a universal existential issue in the 21st century. In the sense of metabolē (Greek for change, transformation), planetary metabolism represents the central challenge for an architectural turn: How can buildings and cities transform themselves into a holobiont consisting of the technosphere, metabolic cycles, and human and non-human communities? How could metabolic architecture function technically, socially, and ecologically, and what aesthetic possibilities does this open up?
The course examines scenarios of architectural biotopes on a factual and fictional level. The aim is to research, theoretically reflect on, and design metabolically networked communities that are narratively interwoven and published in book form.
SE Theoretical Discussions
Peter Volgger
SHELTER IN COLLAPSE
Sixty years after Reyner Banham introduced the concept of the environmental bubble, it has become an analytical prism for the current debate on the relationship between humans, the environment and technology. The seminar examines Banham's utopian vision of a technologically generated microclimate – a portable, immaterial architecture – in the context of global ecological crises, digital networking and posthuman lifestyles. The focus is on questions of how architecture can be conceived beyond physical form, what political and energetic costs comfort zones generate, and to what extent Banham's radical shift of the architectural to infrastructure, control loops and atmospheres can be reinterpreted today (speculative design, new materialism, post-ecology). The Environmental Bubble serves as a conceptual model, critical tool and speculative scenario to visualise the shifts between autonomy and dependence, control and vulnerability, and body, environment and technical media networks.
The aim is to jointly design an Environment Bubble for the present, which will be implemented for an exhibition in autumn 2026.
SE Curatorial Practices
Helga Schania
FASHIONSHOW
Architects are becoming increasingly visible as an integral part of fashion shows. Understanding the fashion show itself as a curatorial practice and actively working with it is driven by ever-expanding possibilities to interweave physical and digital space and to construct a spatial and conceptual narrative.
Whereas fashion shows at their inception at the end of the 19th century were private events for affluent clients, they have now become complex productions in which the boundary between stage and audience becomes blurred, dissolved, or deliberately reversed. The occasion is used to create and stream a highly staged form of live advertising —generating clicks, followers, visibility, and, ideally, new customers for a brand. From an architectural perspective, the fashion show can be understood simultaneously as a temporary building, a live event, and a space–time representation within the digital realm.
The aim of the seminar is to design a fashion show for an upcoming season — for a specific location and a specific designer. Central to the seminar is the development of an independent curatorial concept, as well as the production of a 10–15 page theoretical paper reflecting on a topic accompanying the seminar. Topics accompanying the seminar include contemporary media, speed, density, illusion, light and time, human–body–space relationships, as well as different ways of reading space, city, topography, and social meaning through selected texts. In addition to the weekly seminar sessions, a study visit to Vienna is planned.
The seminar invites all students who are interested in zeitgeist and style and who consider fashion to be a relevant language for architecture.
EX Excursion
Peter Volgger
Sicily
The excursion takes you along the coast of Sicily, starting from Palermo. Between Norman palaces and Arab-influenced domed buildings, you will gain an initial understanding of Sicily as a cultural crossroads between Europe and North Africa. From there, the route follows the north coast via Cefalù, travels along the northern flank of Mount Etna and visits a lava landscape. The route continues along the east coast, from Taormina (Greek-Roman theatre) to Catania (Baroque, fish market), Syracuse (Neapolis, Ortigia). From Noto (Baroque), the excursion leads via Agrigento (Greek temple complex) back to Palermo.
Parallel to exploring these historically grown identities, the excursion deliberately focuses on current challenges and areas of tension. Between ambitious architecture and the so-called maifiniti – never completed or failed projects – participants encounter a different, less idealised Sicily: a space where political upheavals, economic bottlenecks and social dynamics leave visible traces.
It is precisely this complexity that makes Sicily a central space of experience in today's Europe. The island stands at a threshold not only geographically, but also culturally and geopolitically: as a floating bridge between continents, as the first point of arrival for migration across the Mediterranean, as a laboratory of regional identity and European solidarity.
Time period: 2nd week of April